I'm looking to book some tix for trips in the upcoming weeks... I decided to look at ITN for the city/dates that I'm considering...

I must say I saw more F7's, F8's and F9's than I've seen in a long long time...

Some routes, like EWR to LAX/SFO are A0, but the many of the other routes seem to be back to normal.

I'm waiting for someone to find a way to complain about this.

It's good news to me.

Are you looking at dates that are more or less than 30 days out? Just curious.

both... actually I started looking at next week flights to South Florida FLL, MIA, PBI, etc. Then I started looking at flights to ORD, ATL, etc... then getting father and farther out, not changing the "day" but increasing the month, i.e. apr 18, may 18, jun 18, etc...

the LAX, SFO and PHX legs still seem to be "locked up" in A, but for the most part it seems that the other routes have returned to some sense of normalcy...

I didn't look at hundreds of routes, but there's a day next week where the fewest F seats from FLL to EWR is 4. The rest are F9 and F7. If you recall, just two-weeks ago, FLL was one of those A9 F0 no questions asked routes... probably because of spring break.

seats in the F bucket is a good thing. but what markets are you seeing these in? i'm curious to see if the biz markets are getting zeroed out, but the leisure markets are getting seats in the bucket?

If the EUA has been modified to not use the F bucket but rather a hidden bucket, then it makes sense that they would allow the F bucket to get filled up. That means mileage upgrade, positive confirmation upgrade, full fare Y customers etc., can get the seats whenever they want. The "freebie" crowd will need to wait for the EUA to get upgrades.

What CO needs to confirm is whether the elite complimentary upgrades still come out of F and if there is a F seat available in the 5-day plat window, will a plat automatically get it?

One way to check is to see if the F inventory starts to change consistently in the elite upgrade windows. If F continues to have seats till the last day, then the elites are not being upgraded as before (with the assumption that there are always more elites than upgrade seats available).

As someone pointed out earlier, all that matters in the end is whether you consistently get upgrades that you expected.

Yes and yes.

Before a my last trip on continental in late February on one 1,700 mile segment F availability went from F7 to F2 6 days before departure, by the next morning I had not gotten an EUA and it was F0! By noon it as back up to F5!!! During all this time it was a constant A9, meaning that not more then 5 out of 14 seats on the 738 were booked. I called the OnePass Service Center to complain about manipulation of inventory for FC upgrades. They connected me with a reservations supervisor who did the upgrade. The flight actually left with one empty seat in first!.

OldGold: your account is amazingly similar to what the folks over on the US board are talking about. There are mileage upgrade opportunities up to the Elite window, then then disappear for Elite upgrades, then they come back on the day of travel.

My version of the conspiracy all along has been that they're trying to train people into using their miles before EUA runs because it will go to F0 six days out.

By that do you mean they have confirmed it or are you agreeing that they should confirm it? Nothing as written in your report of your meeting with CO says that with complete unambiguity. Instead you have said


which makes no sense as written because even if EUA uses the F bucket, it makes no sense to run it when seats have not been released to F and even if you run it right after releasing it to F, then the agents will have to be told not to use up any of the F seats (not A seats) while it is running and that the automatic check-in kiosks don't upgrade at the time that it is still running and has not allocated all the seats.

Either you have miswritten what she said or she has no idea of what she is talking about.

Why is it so difficult to create a set of unambiguous rules

[This message has been edited by venk (edited 04-04-2002).]

I can just see a group of coke-bottle wearing computer programmers at CO HQ with access to the F/A availability staring at their screens after lunch asking themselves "which flight can I screw with today." In a sordid sort of way, it actually sounds like a cool job. Wonder if they are hiring.

I think what she said was not properly worded. The fact is that seats are released to F and that EUA runs after this. The fact is that, as always, agents will no upgrade people out of A inventory. There is, however, a period of time between when seats are released and when upgrades occur. This is the time from approx 3.5 hours before departure to 3 hours before departure. I think it is reasonable to assume that it is possible for someone (eg. a sliver) to obtain an upgrade during this time from an emachine or from an agent. This loophole is much better than the airport free-for-all loophole, but it is still a loophole.

Hopefully, the chances of this are fairly low. Most people do not arrive at the airport >3 hours before departure. There is some risk of connecting people, particularly those on flights ~1 hour who get to the airport ~1 hour before departure, to get upgrades. This is probably not very common. And, of course, there is the possibility that that some savvy silvers with time to spare and really strong desire to sit in F, to get to the airport 3.5 hours before their flight and use the emachine to check-in and "steal" an upgrade. If CO develops web check-in like nwa, this problem becomes greater.

It's really amazing how unsophisticated this system is. I would be interested to know if the limitations are a result of the system, it's programmers, or the people telling them what to program.

H53Epilot:

You're hired, when can you start?

now this is odd... Monday 6am EWR-IAH:
A0 D0 F0 E0 Y9 H9 K9 B9 V9 Q9 T9